The Fastest USB Flash Drive

The advantage to using a USB 3.0 flash drive is the speed of transferring your files, but what is the fastest USB flash drive?

Well we went looking for the fastest USB flash drive and no surprise it was a USB 3.0 flash drive. Now we don’t consider it the ‘best USB flash drive’ but that’s mostly because of the price tag that comes with it. It’s not the cheapest of options available on the market at the moment. Keep in mind that hardware is always updating and flash drives are becoming ever faster. There’s a chance that by the time you read this there’s a faster USB 3.0 flash drive but for the moment this is the fastest USB flash drive available online.

Last month, Kingston Digital, the flash memory subsidiary of Kingston Technology Company Inc., the world’s leading memory product company, unveiled what they called the fastest USB flash drive in the world; the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0. The 3.0 in the name represents the latest generation of data transferability to hit the market, and its spreading like wildfire as more and more motherboards featuring 3.0 ports are popping up on store shelves as we speak. Though the HyperX 3.0 may look like an ordinary flash drive, Kingston’s new toy caters to the growing need to be the fastest USB flash drive with surprising results.

Fastest USB Flash Drive Features

Capacities: 64GB, 128GB, 256GB
Speed (remember it’s backwards compatible with older USB ports):
USB 3.0: up to 225 MB/s read and 135 MB/s write
USB 2.0: up to 30 MB/s read/write
8-Channel Architecture
Backwards Compatible: with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 ports
Design: reinforced metal and rubberized casing (helpful for those of us clumsy enough to constantly drop theirs)
ReadyBoost Support
Dimensions: 2.952″ x 0.916″ x 0.626″ (74.99mm x 23.29mm x 15.9mm)
Operating Temperature: 32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C)
Storage Temperature: -4°F to 185°F (-20°C to 85°C)
Transport: solid lanyard loop (helpful to not lose it)
Warranty: 5 Years (always good to see in a USB flash drive)

The HyperX brand has always been known to offer the fastest USB flash drives on the market and the HyperX 3.0 continues the tradition, thanks to its high-speed eight-channel architecture. This architecture enables the flash drive to outperform all others with an alarming data transfer rate of 225MB/s read and 135MB/s write for 3.0 ports. I didn’t have to wait at all with this rate of data transferability especially with high end file memory such as Blu-ray discs. And being able to simply plug the flash drive in and out of the port made things even quicker.

If you’re concerned that the 3.0 architecture will only work with high-end computers, don’t sweat it. The HyperX 3.0 USB flash drive is also backward compatible with both 2.0 memory ports, which means you can use it on last generation computers as well. Though the data transfer rate is slower with 2.0 computers – read/write speed at 30 MB – its better than not having any backward compatibility at all. The flash drive operates at a temperature of 32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C), and stores data at a temperature of -4°F to 185°F (-20°C to 85°C), which isn’t bad for such raw power.

In addition to being the fastest USB flash drive, the HyperX 3.0 also has the highest memory capacity for a USB flash drive of its kind, with models available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacity. Of course, none of these models will come cheap ($142.66 for the 64 GB model, $279.29 for the 128 GB model and $870 for the 256 GB model), but what else would you have expected for the latest and most powerful hardware on the market. Did I forget to mention that the HyperX 3.0 comes with a 5 year warranty?

The HyperX 3.0 comes in a reinforced aluminum casing featuring a sleek, blue color scheme with transparency for viewing the components inside. The flash drive also has a black rubber gripping forming an x around the casing and a reinforced lanyard loop attached. Overall, its design looks gorgeous and is quite durable.

Getting the Fastest USB Flash Drive

Given their is absolutely nothing wrong with its performance and the fact that there isn’t any other flash drive like it, the HyperX 3.0 is a winner. Prices for this flash drive, like many others, are always going to be changing. Going for speed in a flash drive is really going to raise the price but Amazon do usually have great deals on electronics such as USB flash drives, so you’ll probably get it lower than list price. It’s one of the fastest USB flash drives and certainly good quality and, if you have the budget, it’s worth a look.